West Bromwich Albion boss Clarke is not one to normally carry a grudge – but he is still smarting from the 3-0 defeat his side suffered at Craven Cottage back in September.

That was the slap in the face that gave the ­Baggies coach a reality check after his flying start to his first managerial post at The ­Hawthorns – and he’s not forgotten.

Fulham have since nose-dived down the ­table and are only four points above the drop zone, but Clarke will remind his players of the ­embarrassment Martin Jol’s side caused them three months ago.

“I’ll certainly remind the players how poorly we played that day,” said Clarke.

“We have to bear in mind what happened when we went down to their place – they turned us over and are one of the few teams to have done that this season.

“They beat us comfortably, so to see where they are now is a little bit surprising.

“I’m sure they will look back on their ­performance against us earlier on in the ­season and hope to replicate that so they can start moving back up the table.

“But I will also be reminding my players that since the Fulham game we’ve done ever so well and if we can get close to the whole form in general that we’ve shown this season, then we can get the new year off to a positive start.”

Clarke has enjoyed a ­magnificent start to life as a No.1 – confounding the critics who had him and his side down as relegation candidates ­before a ball had even been kicked this season.

But he certainly won’t be ­getting the cigars out and patting himself on the back because his targets have not altered since the day he took over the job from Roy ­Hodgson.

“Three weeks ago people were telling me we couldn’t win a game because we hadn’t scored for over five hours,” he said.

“So you know in this game things can turn very quickly. We’ve still got seven points to get before we reach our first target of 40 points and survival.

“It would be remiss of us to start getting ahead of ourselves, having played things down all season.

“It’s up to us to make sure we get to that first target.

“The second target, if you go back to my very first press ­conference – which seems like a hell of a long time ago – I said 50 points would be something we should look at.

“Let’s get to the 40 points, then try and get to 50.

“But firstly, I want to make sure that we get three points against Fulham and then we can build from there. That’s as good as I can give you.”